


The Three-Footed Crow and the Cavern of Gems

by cymyguy



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Anal Sex, Ancient Japan, Body Worship, Come Swallowing, Deepthroating, Demon Hinata Shouyou, Enemies to Lovers, Fantasy, M/M, Multiple Orgasms, Self-Service, Swordfighting, Tongue Fucking, Xenophilia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-22
Updated: 2020-02-22
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:41:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22698814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cymyguy/pseuds/cymyguy
Summary: “At last they send me a hero.”The demon hovered closer. In one motion, no movement wasted, Kageyama extended his arm and pressed his sword tip to the bottom of its chin.“Who are you, hero?”“Kageyama Tobio.”The demon smiled wider. Then he vanished, and the hero felt himself falling.~It has happened more than once, that the gods, looking on the chaos of humankind, choose to ordain a mortal hero; Kageyama Tobio was such a hero.
Relationships: Hinata Shouyou/Kageyama Tobio
Comments: 15
Kudos: 168





	The Three-Footed Crow and the Cavern of Gems

**Author's Note:**

  * For [myrseyy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/myrseyy/gifts).



It has happened more than once, that the gods, looking on the chaos of humankind, choose to ordain a mortal hero, that this hero might beat back the threats of the spirit world and restore humans’ hope in themselves. Kageyama Tobio was such a hero, selected for service at seven years old and set a training objective of twenty years under a team of masters, his progress overseen by the gods themselves. He kept himself from strong drink, unclean food, and physical impurity, utterly simple-minded in his dedication to the divine cause. At the end of his training, he was called to the Holy Mount, where the gods blessed his weapons and set him the task of slaying a demon.

They called the demon Hina-tengu. Only a small part of a man was left in him; he was creature, and spirit, full of dark arts and an incomprehensible blackness, according to report. He had devoured a dreadful number of warriors sent to face him, namely, all. His reputation promised a suitable first trial to the gods’ young hero, and so, Kageyama Tobio was sent to destroy him.

The hero went out in all his armor, crafted and tested and recrafted over careful years. He wore massive ribbed plates over his shoulders and chest, with plates bound tightly to the shape of his forearms. His pants billowed around his thighs and cuffed tightly below the knee, with an armored skirt falling over, and a blue robe draping him to the elbows and ankles for his modesty. His lower legs were fitted with plates and his covered feet secured into sandals. Tied at his waist were his helmet and two thin, slightly curved swords. Their hilts were overlaid with gold and engraved with the symbols of his protective deities.

It was autumn when Kageyama entered the forest to seek the demon’s dwelling. He searched an hour for his guide, a three-footed crow that would show him the way. When he came upon it, pecking around underneath a tree, he drew one sword. The crow turned its head as if it had known all along that he was coming.

“You.”

He pointed the sword at it.

“Will lead me to the monster in the cavern of gems.”

The bird squawked, in a tone that Kageyama could not appreciate, and flew off, darting twice and disappearing from his sight.

“Ha—I command you by the gods to lead me! Come here bird!”

A mocking note bounced its way back to him, and the hero charged into a new path. Branches tugged at his robe as he dodged them with his head and shoulders. He ducked around a wide, low tree and saw the bird perched on a branch.

“You will lead me—”

The crow flew away. It landed on a higher branch and cocked its head around to him. Kageyama hurried toward it and it took off again. The hero’s scowl returned to its resting place, and he sheathed his sword, before following.

Another hour brought him out of the woods. The crow waited at the top of a green hill for him. There was mist over all the land beyond, shrouding the tops of large rock formations. His guide went ahead with powerful hops on its three legs, weaving through the rock, until they came to a particularly cylindrical landmark. It tapered slightly, evenly as it went up, disappearing in the mist so that Kageyama couldn’t see how it ended. The bird headed eagerly for the rock. Kageyama stopped, slipped off his robe, untied his helmet from his waist and put it on. Its top was bowled, and covering his ears and neck on either side were thin, curled plates. Attached to the front center was a piece shaped in a deep arch, ends rising above the rest. He drew one sword and stepped after his guide.

The opening into the rock forced Kageyama to his hands and knees, keeping his blade ready in front of him. The crevice bent sharply to his left, and he crawled out of the gloomy daylight into a tunnel lit by something else. In a few seconds the tunnel gave way to the cavern itself. Kageyama stood up.

There was an opening at the top of the rock, letting in the sunlight that allowed one to see some of the interior. But where the light should widen and dim at the bottom of the cavern, this light was a single strong beam, maintaining about a meter in diameter from the opening to where it landed in the middle of the rocky floor. The walls glittered from floor to ceiling, embedded with bits of gold and raw gemstones of every color one could conceive. There was also an array of lost weapons half-buried into the rock, arrows with red shafts and bright plumage, silver spears, and enough swords to provide for a small army, their decorated hilts glinting along with the precious stones.

The forest had been quiet, but the cavern was monumentally silent. Kageyama heard his own deep breath echo off the walls. He realigned his grip on his sword and started to circle the cavern.

A shadow cut through the light source. Kageyama looked to the opening. His eyes narrowed as they searched the darkness at the top of the cavern. He was already bent at the knees and elbows in preparation when movement caught his eye. It was only the crow, hopping into the circle of light. It looked at him.

It did not break the silence, not until its wings spread and flapped to lift it straight up toward the opening in the rock. As Kageyama watched it go, its black wings grew before his eyes, stretching past the edges of the beam of light, and suddenly there was no bird, but a human-like body with wings in the place arms should be. The creature dodged the opening and merged with the impenetrable dark above him.

Kageyama twisted his head furiously in search of it. The demon had been with him all along; it guided its own prey into its domain by assuming the form of a harmless creature. It was amusing to the demon, no doubt. The hero was moved to a smirk by its nerve. He wanted, very dearly now, to destroy it.

He dropped the smirk instantly, squinting and craning his neck. There was no more sound of wings.

The demon rested on its perch and watched the hero through black eyes. Outside of the light the armored man was only a hulking mass, but the demon had seen him in daylight, and watched him intently now. His dark hair fell past his shoulders, silky like the night sky, and his eyes could only be compared to the blue gemstones blinking around them. The demon supposed he should have expected nothing less than for a god-sent hero to be as beautiful as they were strong. But he had not expected it.

The hero was different than pillagers to the cavern. He had not bothered about the riches, all his attention paid to something else entirely from the time they met in the forest. The demon had led him in the knowledge that he was being sought, not as a post-humous provider of riches, but as an opponent. He had grown tired waiting for a real threat; it was tiring to play with someone whose throat he could very well have slit with their own weapon while they kissed the gold in the walls. As the demon watched the hero step deliberately toward the column of light, the force that had been boiling cheerfully in his stomach shot up through his chest like a lightning bolt. It made him so much hungrier than the anticipation as he eyed his usual prey. For this, the demon had been starving a long, long time.

Kageyama stopped with his toe just outside the light. He regripped his sword again, then thrust himself forward. He looked straight above him, blade raised flat over his head to block an immediate blow. The blow did not come, and in his instant of recalculating, he felt his feet leave the ground.

Kageyama flailed, but with no leverage he hardly moved enough to dispel the burst of surprised energy. He locked his sword over his chest as he rose into the air. Demons had many supernatural powers at their disposal, and they could be used to tip the scales, if Kageyama was not careful. If he remained calm, he would likely remain upright, and even in midair a considerable amount of strength was with him.

He stopped rising at a point closer to the ceiling than the floor. There was still no sound of wings. Kageyama held his breath, eyes narrowed. Out of the glittering that surrounded him, he identified two twin circles. They grew brighter, and bigger, and came closer, until he saw them as the eyes of the demon creature. He twisted his blade very slightly.

The demon approached him from the front. Its wings were gone, replaced by regular arms, and it floated through the air as Kageyama did, though with much more freedom of movement. It glided right up to him, the pale light washing over its face and torso. Its eyes glowed an amber orange, and its hair was like a cheerful hearth fire. A smile scampered across its lips. Then the lips parted.

“At last they send me a hero.”

His voice did not slither from his mouth. It was slightly deeper than Kageyama would have expected, and more bird-like than anything.

The hero glanced as far as he dared from the demon’s face. His legs were covered in black, almost as if it had been painted to his skin, the brush stopping just past his hips. Here it faded abruptly into white, as familiar as his own torso. Kageyama momentarily forgot his resolve to look the demon in the face as his mind stalled over his body. He was small. Short, rather, but not small at all. His shoulders, not as wide as Kageyama’s, were wide nonetheless. The muscles of his chest were firm mounds, and underneath each of eight abdominals was starkly outlined. His waist hardly tapered, straight and solid like a log. There was a black cloth with a single knot hanging at his hips, but it covered little of his black thighs. Kageyama gathered a strange feeling of familiarity from all of it.

The demon hovered closer. In one motion, no movement wasted, Kageyama extended his arm and pressed his sword tip to the bottom of the demon’s chin.

The demon blinked at him. He had two short horns that hardly poked above his hair, rounded with sharp tips, and two more directly behind them, toward the back of his head. His face was pointed and impish in a certain light, but in another it was round like a tapestry cherub. Then with a flash, the demon was gone.

He reappeared above Kageyama, sticking his head into the light and looking down at him with as genuine a smile as a creature of evil could muster.

“Who are you, hero?”

His voice was like a bright bird song. Kageyama glared, to mask how unsettled he had begun to feel over the demon’s particular collection of qualities. He hummed to prepare his throat.

“Kageyama Tobio.”

The demon smiled wider. He vanished again. Then the hero felt himself falling.

His feet slammed to the stone floor and his knees held on, but he took a single step for balance, and the demon swooped on him in that instant, wings covering Kageyama in shadow as his helmet was torn off his head. His hair dropped onto his back. He swung his sword to clear the air so he could look up.

The demon was suspended in the light above him, wings fluttering out at his sides, looking down with a wide grin.

“What a pretty little hero!”

Kageyama frowned. “I am much bigger than you are.”

A crackle ripped through the air as the demon locked eyes with him. His orange irises flared brighter.

“I was not talking about myself! That is beside the point!”

Then a horrible smile grew over his face, showing his teeth, all relatively small, and all sharp. He disappeared from the light. Kageyama saw a flash of his eyes and teeth, then heard the sound of a blade grating over rock as the demon drew his weapon.

Wind rushed through his ears and spiraled around the cavern. His eyes relocated the demon in the depth of his swoop, watching his wings shorten into arms just in time for him to transfer his sword from his feet. He swung it down with both hands. The sound of it colliding with Kageyama’s rang off the rock that surrounded them. The demon landed lightly on his feet and put immediate, tremendous pressure against Kageyama’s blade. The hero didn’t let it budge, but his arms started to shake, the same as the demon’s. His nose scrunched as he bared his teeth and stared down his foe. The demon smiled.

He suddenly gave up his push, and Kageyama’s sword fell forward against nothing as the creature sprouted his wings and took to the air. He circled the central light, the dark parts of his body becoming shadow-like, though Kageyama couldn’t tell if it was only a trick of his eyes. He had no time to decide. The demon rushed him. He pulled his legs around to lead his body, one wing held high to steer his descent. With his arm he brought his sword down, a vicious swing from a dangerous angle. Kageyama blocked it far from his body, letting the demon’s momentum bring him close to his chest, then straightened his arms and shoved him away. The demon veered to avoid the wall and circled back. Kageyama swung; their blades slid over each other until the hilts locked together. His weapon was immobile as the demon’s sword tip stuck directly through a gap in his armor, severing the fastening of his shoulder plate and tearing it from his body. The demon catapulted over his shoulder, landed and was off again.

He swept down on the hero, time and again, striking and not harming but leaving no time for Kageyama to strike himself. Kageyama stayed out of the light, where it was hardest to see the surroundings. The demon was a blurred part of the darkness, except for his eyes, brightened to a piercing degree. Orange tendrils of smoke floated from them. He came down from directly above, driving to meet Kageyama’s blocking blade, and ricocheted off his immovable stance. He flipped backwards in the air and landed on his feet, ducking under Kageyama’s sword then blocking it as he slid underneath. He slashed his pantleg with his clawed foot, and flew away just as he turned around.

“Coward,” Kageyama called after him.

“What, you want everyone to play your way, hero?”

He saw the smoke pouring off his eyes.

“Fine then!”

The demon landed a few meters in front of him, his impact completely silent, which seemed to shake the place even more than a thunderous landing could. He gripped his sword with two hands and raised it over his head. Kageyama dropped his to his hip, and charged. Their weapons sounded like they had shattered on impact, but were still whole as the two went into a fiercely fast exchange. Kageyama was accustomed to give in his opponents’ weapons, because of his superior strength, but the demon held steady against him, making the force of his blows rattle his own hilt. When he struck back and Kageyama was forced to deflect it, the speed that preceded such power nearly caught him by surprise.

“You are stronger than the others, Kageyama Tobio!”

The demon was smiling. Kageyama scowled, lip curling as he clicked his tongue. He raised his sword to make use of his almost startling height advantage; he pounded him with repeated blows in the same angle. The demon moved back a step, then another, a glare replacing the smile. Kageyama didn’t relent, denied him a moment to get any kind of bearings, and when the demon stepped back again, his shoulder bumped the wall and disrupted his defensive force. Kageyama brought his sword down that instant, slamming the demon’s blade away, gathering, and thrusting for his middle.

The thrust just missed, the demon outflinching it by a hair. Kageyama pulled back, realizing in an instant that his sword had been eaten up by the rock. Just like the plethora of weapons around him, it was stuck solid. His hand snapped to the hilt of his second sword and he tore it out to cut off the demon’s incoming swing. His momentary power was not enough to stop the blade dead; he felt the warm metal touch on his cheek before he forced it away, then leapt to distance himself from the wall.

He had barely avoided losing his hand, and his foe was smirking. Kageyama burned, but held himself back, waiting for the demon to make an approach. He marked each of his steps, located the imbalance and struck at that angle, down and up and down relentlessly, finally putting him back on one heel. He connected their blades again, intent on a disarming twist, but the demon met it and with too much strength. Kageyama inverted his move, and the sudden combination of their power downward pulled the sword from the demon’s hand, knocking it between his feet. The demon reached behind him. Kageyama saw the sword he was going for, but didn’t have the angle with the wall that was necessary to prevent it, so the demon drew it out freely and swung at him again.

They made their way three times around the cavern. Kageyama had begun to develop an itch of a feeling, that he was seeing himself mirrored. Certain steps, certain positions of the elbow, and certain swishes of the wrist gave him flashes of his masters, of things he had learned to execute. He forced them away as best he could, focusing on the unfamiliar in the demon’s style. He was particularly keen on denying Kageyama the advantages of his greater height. This seemed to bring on a smile more than anything. Kageyama tried to make him pay for his obsession by ducking even farther and hitting him low when he rose up. The demon landed both feet on his blade, and when Kageyama flung him off he flipped backwards and entered the beam of light, suspending himself there.

“Come into the light, hero,” he cried. “I want to see what they’ve sent.”

The hero came forward without hesitation. The demon brought himself to the ground, pupils blowing as the whole man became visible in detail. He used his run up to attack. The demon danced around the circle and went for his body. He knocked away a section of his skirt, then another, and after a few parries he tore off an arm guard too, picking apart his armor because he wanted to see.

He had the man caged in the light with him, so that everything was obvious, down to the way his armor protected and the movements it slightly hindered. The hero lunged into a thrust intended to kill. He took to his wings to avoid it, but didn’t go far before shooting back down, smacking away the man’s attempted block and turning his sword over to bang the hilt against his remaining shoulder plate. The plate dented and wedged in behind his chest protection.

The demon landed and spun, smiling and waiting. He knew the pinch would make every movement of his sword arm painful, if the man let it be. But there was no pause as the hero pried off his breast plate. He tossed it aside with no concern for his newfound vulnerability. The demon jumped in to attack it. The hero was infuriatingly strong, returning everything blow for blow and block for block. It was more than a few minutes before the demon broke an opening through his stance. He used it to catch the tip of his blade on the front of his shirt and rip it through the neckline, revealing a small window of hulking chest muscle, just as he had been expecting. It was all he could manage anyway, because to even pierce the skin would have taken longer than the man’s swing at his head.

They fought on, sweat rolling down their necks, muscles burning but refusing to shake. When the demon matched his lowering blows until he had pinned his blade to the ground, and when the man forced them up, and when the demon had worked them back to the same position on the ground again, the man smiled begrudgingly. Then he chased the demon out of the light, and they fought around the cavern once more. The man forced his blade to bow once, and as his bare arm was stretched and flexed before him the demon longed to tear it up. He had to settle for more jarring collisions between their swords, more quick steps to stay ahead of, more fierce flashes across the hero’s eyes.

He was disarmed again. It was not an intentional move, but a lucky landing for one in a furious flurry of the man’s hits. It deadened the demon’s arm for the instant in which the hero slammed his sword down, and he lost his second blade to the floor. He reached for another.

Kageyama had learned from the last time. He made his blow deliberately from an angle which left him covering the wall once his momentum died, his body denying the demon a new weapon. The demon threw out his wings and sprang off his powerful legs, but Kageyama wrapped his arm around one. He held him down as the wings reached for the light above them, throwing a mighty wind against the ground. In an instant the demon had his arms back, spinning with a devastating elbow to knock him away. Kageyama caught it in front of his face, dropping the demon’s flightless body. The demon grabbed his sword hand, keeping the blade high away from them as their other hands locked and grappled. Kageyama swept his leg and took them both down, pinning him with his body for a single moment. The demon smiled, planted his feet into him and launched him at the wall.

Kageyama twisted to make impact with his armored shoulder. He landed well, but the blow left him stunned stiff, and he could do nothing as the demon charged him, ramming him square in the chest with his shoulder and into the wall a second time.

It happened that the fundamentality of the hero’s movements, not his sheer strength, was his greatest advantage. He always returned to the optimal position. And the demon, it seemed, had landed his last step neglectfully. It was just enough, that Kageyama had seen the mistake and not made one of his own. The demon lifted his leg and crushed Kageyama’s sword hand to the wall with his foot. But he didn’t lose his grip. As the demon reached for Kageyama’s other sword, the one embedded in the rock next to him, Kageyama took a step, bringing them chest to chest. He pushed him back. The sword came out in his hand, but Kageyama spun them with his thigh between his legs and pinned him to the wall, their blades locking together out at their sides.

They pushed. The demon gritted his teeth, but it was to no avail, because Kageyama had gotten the better angle. The demon’s sword flew up and away, and Kageyama’s blade landed against his arm.

The demon’s wings burst from his shoulders, but Kageyama grabbed one by its primary bone and held on as the creature beat the other and thrashed his body. He hit him soundly twice, before Kageyama caught at his feathers with his other hand, making the demon yelp. The wings faded into arms and Kageyama gathered his wrists together, raising them above his head. The demon stared up at him.

Their breathes heaved at each other. The echoes from their swords faded, leaving deathly silence between them. The demon dropped his head. Kageyama could see his smile, but his eyes were hidden under his bush of hair. He had almost forgotten the fight must end. He swallowed, shaking his head once to clear away whatever was making him hesitate.

The hero cast his eyes down between them, in order to lift his blade to his throat, but he paused with his gaze between the demon’s thighs. His loincloth had been pulled up from its proper resting place, now caught against the protrusion of a stiff cock.

“What…is this?”

He pressed the flat of his blade against the underside of the cock, and glanced at the demon’s face.

“I am no human,” he said.

Kageyama would know without the admission. The object in question was black on the top, but pale turned to red on its underside. He had no covering of skin attached, as Kageyama had, and he was as hairless there as on the rest of his body, unnaturally smooth.

“It always holds itself this way.”

Kageyama scowled. He increased the pressure from his blade.

“It was not always holding itself this way.”

“And how would you know?” the demon said. Kageyama snapped his eyes away from the glint in the demon’s. “Would it have had your attention sooner?”

The hero stared down between them, jaw locked and brows pulled down, fighting away the feeling creeping up from the back of his mind and his gut, threatening to make his face flush.

He tightened his grip on the demon’s wrists and turned his sword to its edge. The orange eyes pulsed brighter. Kageyama glanced at his package. The underneath was an angrier red, with a dark vein now starting to draw toward the skin surface, and as the hero watched, its head lifted, pulling a very slight distance from Kageyama’s blade.

“I do not control it,” the demon said. He was looking off to the side, pouting.

“But you should account for it,” said Kageyama.

“You are a fun fight.”

Kageyama lifted him by his wrists, so that the demon’s toes barely touched the ground. “The fight is over.”

“But I am not dead yet.”

Try as he might to prevent it, the hero’s face faltered.

“It would be nice, before I died,” the demon said, “To be relieved.”

A deep breath widened him, and he rolled his shoulders slightly as he exhaled, a small, low sound catching in his throat.

“You never have,” he said. “Have you.”

Kageyama could not fail to understand him. Lustfulness had never been so openly discussed in his presence, and he had certainly never been tempted, not even in his imagination.

“You are a hero. Taken when you were very young, trained in isolation. There was no chance for it.”

“That kind of exertion interferes with training,” said Kageyama.

“So they tell you,” was the demon’s reply. “But you wouldn’t know yourself that that is true.” He peered from under his bangs. “I would know.”

“And you—” Kageyama touched his blade to his stiffness again— “Are in a good position to tell me.”

The demon smiled.

“It is not true. My strength is equal to yours, isn’t it?”

“I would not say equal.”

But the hero knew that he had not really won by strength. If the demon was lecherous, then either what he said was true, or he had been significantly stronger than Kageyama before all his lechery was taken into account. Kageyama did not want to accept either as fact.

“Wouldn’t you like to know, hero? The feeling of quick release. When the ache comes on, after your training, and you don’t have to wait for it to fade like the burn in your muscles. Wouldn’t that be nice?”

Kageyama knew the ache well. He knew the wait just as well.

“Didn’t it seem like it would be simple? And how could it hurt anybody? How could it hurt the gods? To get rid of a distraction. To soothe your own pain.”

“Are you asking me for mercy?” Kageyama said.

“You have already been merciful,” the demon pointed out.

They looked at each other for a long moment.

“Mercy.”

Kageyama lifted his sword to the demon’s throat.

“I will make it quick.”

He looked him in the eye once more, because it was his first time killing, after all. The demon smiled faintly. His eyes were massive orbs of black, with one bright planetary ring of orange around the outside, trained on Kageyama’s face. He could feel them like a hand’s touch, brushing down his jawline, combing his eyelashes, tracing his lips. The demon did not move, but Kageyama felt claws pulling through his hair and tickling his neck. It must be black magic. The hero would not be deferred by such tricks, no matter how many times the demon’s eyes kissed his cheeks and nose and brow, no matter how much he _wanted_.

Kageyama released the demon’s wrists, and his sword clanged against the rock at their feet. He stared. Then he backed away in some panic, raising his fists, his last line of defense now that he had thrown away his blessed weapons.

The demon blinked at him, eyes still blackened. Then he came forward, slowly, like a horrible nightmare in which Kageyama watched his approach and could not flee. The demon reached out his red hands. Kageyama took hold of his wrists.

“I showed you mercy,” he said.

The demon nodded.

“And what do you want me to show you?”

Kageyama’s lips fell open. White heat splintered his spine. He looked at the demon’s red hands, then his red cock.

He kept hold of his wrists even as he let the demon move his hands where he wanted, to strip away his garments. He was quick with the armor, jerking the fastenings out through his fingers and letting the pieces fall haphazardly. Then he peeled off his shirt, and his second shirt, his hands and even claws avoiding direct contact with Kageyama’s skin, which made goosebumps of tension pop up all along his arms. The demon bent over to lift each ankle and guide his legs out of his pants. He moved to take hold of his undergarment, but Kageyama stopped his hand.

He let go of his wrists and reached for the demon himself, scowling as he tugged on the knot that held the demon’s loincloth. It fell next to him. Then the demon plucked off the two pieces of his undergarment.

Kageyama felt the blood pour into his cheeks and between his legs. He still clung to one of the demon’s wrists as he pressed both hands to the top of Kageyama’s chest and smoothed them down his pectorals. Kageyama held his breath as heat simmered under his skin. The demon’s line of sight fell naturally to the level of his nipples. He was hairier, here and everywhere, than the demon, and he felt his chest start to rosy, as if to bring more attention to the fact. He failed to notice that he was moving away, stepping back from the contact, and that the demon’s hands were guiding his direction, until the beam of light was glaring off of his bare body. The demon was gone, and Kageyama was rising into the air again.

He started to invoke the name of a god against him, but stopped short when it came to his attention that the situation had been brought on by his own foolishness. He twisted and squirmed in silent rage, not managing to broaden his vision much at all. He froze when he heard the demon’s voice.

“Don’t be afraid of me, hero, or my task will be impossible.”

“I am not afraid,” he said, though he was naked, stripped of all weapons and robbed of most of his strength, and could not see his adversary.

He felt a touch on his shoulders and stopped breathing, rapidly calculating the escapes he could use if the monster took hold of his head or neck.

“No?” said the demon.

His shoulders were tense under the clawed hands.

“No.”

Fingers pulled through the back of his hair. Claws detangled the knots with ease, but even the gentlest pricks of his scalp made Kageyama shiver and his cock harden.

“No?”

Claws touched the side of his throat, and the demon lifted his hair away from the back of his neck. He breathed audibly against the exposed skin.

“No,” the hero said.

The demon let go. Then he came out of the dark directly in front of Kageyama, face level with his knees. He glanced up as he reached to remove the plates on Kageyama’s shins. He tossed them away. They clinked against the ground as the demon peeled off his sandals and silver-toed socks. He dropped them all, and wrapped his fingers around Kageyama’s ankles, eyes darting over every bulge of his legs until he reached his groin, where Kageyama’s hands were cupped protectively. As the demon’s eyes moved up his torso, Kageyama crossed an arm over his chest. His body had not been built for pleasure. The demon would probably laugh at it.

The demon did laugh, heartily, his face scrunching.

“You were not afraid while I swung a sword at you,” he said. “But now you are afraid.”

“I am not.”

The demon rose up in front of him until their eyes were level.

“Are you afraid of this?” He gestured between his legs, where his cock was so rigid it didn’t sway. He put his fist over his heart, in vow. “I would never use it to harm.”

Kageyama scowled, trying to pin down the mockery in his voice or gesture. The demon came forward, reached out and pushed on his shoulders, then the outside of his thighs. Kageyama kept his hands securely over his cock. The demon situated him at the edge of the illuminated circle.

“Don’t go too far outside the light, or you will fall. And you are so big, I might not be able to catch you.” He smiled.

Kageyama shifted in his too-large body. The demon moved to the other edge of the circle. He leaned until his back was parallel to the ground, and pulled his knees up toward his chest, tucking into an obscene ball that showed Kageyama the underside of his cock and the tiny pink hole between his black cheeks.

“What are you going to do?” Kageyama said.

The demon’s eyes glinted from between his legs. He moved his sword hand down to his cock, gripping with his fist around the shaft. Kageyama’s brow crept toward his hairline.

His fist jerked up and down, bouncing between the head and his sack. Kageyama’s eyes bounced with it. The demon’s hand looked small around his cock, which was about as thick as his wrist was wide. The hero drug his eyes up to his face. His eyes were squeezed shut. His lips were parted. Suddenly they split wide, and he released his cock from his hand, a shiver running from his legs up his body.

He looked at Kageyama, who glanced away, heat flooding his cheeks. The demon smiled when he glanced back. He curled up farther, and tucked his feet behind his head. Kageyama gaped. The demon eyed his own cock. Then his dark pink tongue slipped between his lips. It was shaped like an ordinary human’s, but long enough when he stretched it to run up the length of his cock, thick saliva oozing over the head when he removed it. Kageyama watched a shiny dribble slide down the shaft, and his own mouth felt like a cracked and crusted riverbed. It hurt to suck breath down his throat. The demon met his eye again, but Kageyama’s head was fuzzy. Something trembled up his spine.

The demon’s hands gripped the backs of his knees and held them in place as he looped his tongue around his cock. He mimicked the earlier movement of his hand, and Kageyama was disturbed, awed, and choked on every attempted swallow.

The demon’s cock brightened with red. In seconds it was covered in slick and the tongue glided furiously up and down. The demon shuddered violently and Kageyama felt a cold horror grip him. White squirted from the demon’s cock and drew an untidy line up his thigh as he sucked a sharp little breath through his nose.

Kageyama stared. The demon partially uncurled himself, sighing before he opened his eyes to Kageyama. He straightened himself and faced him properly. He seemed to be unharmed. When he gave a wry smile, understanding washed over Kageyama with a feeling like the sweltering sun had just been turned on.

His hands had fallen away from his groin. It felt like a large rock was hanging between his legs. The demon’s own cock bobbed slightly with his movement, still stiff as could be. Even the black-coated top of it had turned a blistering red.

Kageyama wanted it to burn his tongue and everything inside him. Heat was shooting up his neck in waves. His body buzzed, but his mind was silent; he didn’t know how to ask for what he wanted.

The demon hovered closer, eyes burning with the question before it left his lips.

“Will you proceed, hero?”

The demon was truly the merciful one.

“Yes,” Kageyama said.

He reached for the hero’s waist, easing him into the center of the light, then moved around behind him. He sunk lower, kissing each bump of the man’s spine with only his breath. He put his hands to his waist again, gently, though he wanted to dig his claws into the bulge of muscle above his hips. He wanted to cover the whole expanse of his back in long welting marks and watch the muscle shiver. He wanted to plant his face between the boulders that made his behind, and use his teeth. He wanted, but the hero was new to want, so he would quench them both slowly.

He touched his cock to the place where the hero’s thighs were pushed together; the man spread them so quickly it surprised him for a moment. He held to him loosely, unrestrictive, and carefully tucked himself between his legs, until his front was pressed to the hero’s glutes and his cock was aligned against the underside of his. The hero’s was slightly thicker and a head longer. He wanted to have hold of it, but he pressed his cheek to the man’s side and reached for his much larger hand, guiding it to their cocks. The man hesitated, then closed his fist around them. He gasped, and the demon forgot all about himself.

The hero adjusted and readjusted his grip. The demon rested his hand over his, smiling against his side as he encouraged him to draw his fist down their shafts. His arm shuddered through the movement and he hissed against his teeth. The demon held down a chuckle as he groped at them, hand too soft, little sounds bubbling from the back of his throat.

“Mm…mhuh—ha—”

An idea lit up the demon’s mind; he loosened the man’s fingers and moved his hand away, tilted his chin down and stretched out his tongue to slick the length of the hero’s cock, giving a wet flick over the head. The hero moaned a short, questioning note. The demon’s eyes flared, but he suffocated the hot coals in his belly and attuned himself to the hero, guiding his hand back to their cocks. His fist slid achingly smoothly, and as he gained assurance his grip tightened around them. His hands were strong. The demon pressed his claws into the meat of his hamstring, but stayed otherwise docile.

The man’s hand slowed, then stopped. The demon heard him panting above and peeked up to his face. His eyes peeled open and he looked down. The demon kept his eyes rolled upward as he leaned farther. He slid his tongue out, watching the man’s face grow intensely interested, to a point near dread. He curled himself around the man’s thigh, one arm squeezing his stone waist and one clutching his leg. Face now level with their cocks, he coated their heads in saliva, then slipped his mouth around them.

Together they were far too thick for him to swallow, but the man’s cock, being longer, pushed against the back of his throat, heavenly hot and fat. The hero flailed above him, and he tightened his arm around his waist. He could tell how close he was to bursting, by the dangerous pulsing of his head. The demon wedged his tongue between them and massaged there. He bobbed his head in, only a centimeter or two, and Kageyama Tobio roared.

The demon pulled his mouth away.

“Thi—This is a form of torture,” the man said.

The demon smirked.

“I am doing well.”

“How many have you killed this way?”

The hero’s eyes were chilled, serious, though he could hardly keep them open.

“I am not out to kill you, at the moment,” the demon said.

Kageyama looked at him. Though it was cool in the cavern, his collarbones shined with sweat, and pieces of his hair stuck to his neck. His shoulders gave a little shiver.

“Proceed,” he said.

The demon lunged like a snake to jam their cocks back into his mouth. A high cry escaped the hero. He bobbed his head, the man rubbing on his throat. He felt the unbearable pressure, and pulled back, top lip just clinging to his own head. His tongue slithered the length of the man’s cock. Then he split the muscle down the middle, the two parts curling off from each other, and wrapped one around each cock. He stroked them off with his tongue until their come flooded his mouth.

The hero released a broken cry and pawed over his back. The demon swallowed and suckled, wringing his cock in long strokes and guzzling the streams of come. Kageyama’s continual crying sang in his ears; his voice shook with each squeeze down his shaft. The demon milked him of his first climax, poured out like a cloud heavy with rain.

The hero trembled as he held onto him. When he whimpered, the demon loosened his grip to give more broad, wet strokes to his cock, rubbing around the base of the head then rolling over the top, lapping up the burbling aftershocks. The man trembled from the legs, and the demon squeezed him under the thighs, letting his own cock slip from his lip and straightening his back. He pulled his tongue together and ran it around his cock once more before he removed his mouth.

For a moment he pressed his face to the small of the man’s back, the smell of his skin filling him with something feral. Then he sank down and glided underneath him, turning to face the hero’s legs.

He caressed his ankles, tracing the bones with his claws, then moved his eyes up, devouring each massive stack of tendons that built the parts that made the man. He had never seen a human so large and dense, that was only a human.

“How did it feel, hero?”

Kageyama blinked at him like a sleepy child. He nodded slowly.

“Was it…your black magic?”

The demon laughed. He squeezed the man’s ankles in his palms.

“Do you want to feel it again?” he said.

A deep breath lifted the man’s chest.

“You will do it again.”

The demon eyed his cock, already showing some sign of resurrection, then hid his smile as he looked back up.

“Will you try something different?”

Kageyama’s mind raced through void space, unable to even imagine what other wonders the demon could perform. He nodded with reckless energy, then, remembering who he was and who had sent him, attempted to look stern again. That was, until the demon rose up to be face to face, took hold of his shoulders and tipped him backwards. When his feet came out from under him he squirmed against it, but the demon put a hand on his stomach and laid him out, and he could do nothing but twist his torso and kick his feet a little. And he could scowl, which he did as deeply as possible, until the demon crawled over him.

He shuffled his hands from his hips up his waist as he climbed aboard, straddling him with his legs. He glanced behind him, then cocked his head and said:

“May I?”

The hero ought to have asked what he was agreeing to, but he nodded without doing so. Then the demon licked his lips, and at the sight of it Kageyama only cared to be shown as quickly as possible.

The demon squeezed his sides with his knees as he rocked forward over his torso. He turned and gripped Kageyama’s half-hard cock, holding it steady as he plunged up and down to open up his hole around the head.

Kageyama wheezed a gasp that hurt his chest, hands jumping at the only thing he had to hold onto. The demon’s hole was soft and hot on the tip of his cock. Kageyama tensed, muscles rolling all over his body in every odd direction. His head dropped back, cutting his sounds down to haggard breaths.

He writhed, the agonizingly small amount he could, to the point of temporary exhaustion, and by that time the demon had taken his proper seat on him. Kageyama was sheathed between his cheeks, which squeezed to tighten the pressure around his cock, and his legs engaged every last tendon as he held to him. Kageyama gripped the tops of his thighs.

“You are strong in ways I do not understand.”

“You will understand,” said the demon, his voice lofty, but eyes warm.

He planted his palms on Kageyama’s ribcage and started to slide up and down his cock. Kageyama could only curl up close to him, trusting that he would only feel like he was being torn to shreds, that the demon would care for his body in ways he had not known it could be cared for. The demon moved in a slow rhythm, the power to lift himself rippling through his abdominals. His heat dripped down on all sides of Kageyama’s cock, and then he drug it away; each time his head plunged through the tight ring of his hole, the blood in Kageyama’s veins was doused with fire, exploding into a fever over his skin when the demon had taken his entire length again. Kageyama crumpled away as another wave of pleasure wound him up. Laid out as before, he was content to watch the demon from below, admiring his body in the light that made the white of him paler, and the black and red sharper. Looking at his shoulders and chest only, Kageyama would have judged him to be at least as tall as himself, but maybe the shortness of his torso was what made him appear so broad. His eyes traced over the tiny space between the demon’s clean pectorals, the swell of them making it almost invisible. His arms, stretched down to where they supported him against Kageyama’s body, had sultry curvature, little grooves flexing in his forearms and biceps as he held himself. Kageyama still felt he had seen it all before, except this time it was beautiful.

The demon popped off the head of his cock and folded himself over to lather it in fresh saliva.

“I know just what heroes like.”

He sank down his shaft. As his sack pressed to Kageyama’s body, his angle and tightness drew his foreskin down. Kageyama’s eyes rolled back.

“How—How do you know?” he said.

When there was no answer, Kageyama peeled his eyes open. The demon smirked.

“I used to be one.”

Kageyama gaped.

Now, almost everything made sense, the parallels in their fighting styles, all his musculature, even the edge in the demon’s voice when he called him “hero.” Kageyama’s eyes raked over his body again and the bubbles of pressure inside him started to burst. His nerves shot to the skies with his climax, and the demon shortened his up and downs, drawing out the hottest burn of his high. When he could open his eyes again, the demon was a blur, pounding down onto him and throwing his head back as he came in one white shot across his stomach. Kageyama froze, startled by the violence of it. The demon opened his eyes, and smoke wisped from them. He looked everything but satiated.

The demon’s touch on his ribs gentled as he eased himself up and off of Kageyama’s spent cock. His hands slid down to his hips, then he leaned in and licked the come off his stomach, every last pearly bead. He smacked his lips softly as he straightened up and looked at Kageyama.

“Again?” he said.

Kageyama’s body whimpered. He felt like dough beaten to soft compliance, and swimming in air did not help to alleviate it. He was temporarily unable to pour himself out for the demon’s thirst, but he refused to be completely useless. He tried not to look between the demon’s legs as he cleared his throat to speak.

“I am…content, for now,” he said, “But I will…repay—your favors.”

The demon cocked an eyebrow.

“How?”

Kageyama fought his blush with a furious scowl.

“I…will stop talking.”

The demon’s eyes widened. Then he smiled, mischievously, and lifted his hand, running his clawed thumb over Kageyama’s top then bottom lip.

“Aren’t you too pretty for that?” he said.

The flush started to crawl down into Kageyama’s chest, but his blood was already simmering in response to the challenge.

“I am done talking,” he said. The demon smiled wider.

He straightened Kageyama up by his shoulders. Then he turned over in the air and Kageyama was confronted by the cock he had temporarily pledged himself in service to. He glanced down, and the demon was looking up at him, still with a smile. Kageyama shook his hair away from his face and reached for the backs of the demon’s knees, pulling him close.

Kageyama took a deep breath and placed his mouth around the head of his cock. He groped over it, getting used to its breadth and the hot, husky taste. He smoothed his tongue down the underside, tensing when it slid slightly deeper. He took another breath, considering and reconsidering the weight of it in his mouth. He lifted his chin to accommodate its erect angle, and sucked tentatively; it slid through his lips and heat shot down to Kageyama’s toes. He pulled on the demon’s knees and slid his cock seamlessly to the back of his mouth.

The demon clung around his middle, hot breaths tickling his pubic hair. Kageyama gargled against his head, throat resisting the threat. He pulled back, then pushed forward again, but got no farther. The demon’s cock muffled his displeasure. Then from below the demon fisted Kageyama, pressing his tongue firmly against his head and rubbing over and back. Heat crawled out through his pelvis, but he ignored it, and following the lead, pulled back and rubbed his tongue over the demon’s slit. His own saliva was not miraculously slick, and his tongue grated more than glided, but the friction grew hot between them until the demon made a tiny push with his hips. Kageyama’s jaw fell loose and the demon’s cockhead bumped its way down his throat.

Kageyama retracted, tightening his lips again when he was able, until they caught on the base of the demon’s head. Then he relaxed and deepthroated him again, groaning from the pit of his stomach as it filled his windpipe, smooth and heavy and good.

The demon fisted him again, jerking slowly with his hand as he sucked on his head. Kageyama shuddered, and pulled back, somewhat begrudgingly, to suck the demon’s head and stroke his shaft. The demon chirped once, and his teeth grazed Kageyama’s hip, prompting him to stroke more deliberately. The demon’s breathing started to match the movement of Kageyama’s hand, and he felt a stuttering thrill; when the thrill died, he chased it into the demon’s body. Planting his hands onto his behind, Kageyama pulled him into his mouth, the demon’s thighs enclosing his head as he sucked him down. He moved him in and out just a fraction, then slipped all the way off. His lower lip drug up the underside of the demon’s cock on the way to his sack. He mushed his lips over it and sucked hard, and hot fluid streamed down his chest.

The demon let go of his waist, and Kageyama hurried to release him. He pushed off of Kageyama and floated away before righting himself. Then he glided back to him, hands reaching to where his eyes were locked. He touched his torso again and pressed his tongue to the come drip farthest down his body, licking up each line from where it had splattered, until his tongue ran between his pecs where the white was thickest. The demon smiled at him as he was finishing his job, and Kageyama felt the corners of his mouth tug as pride welled inside. The demon’s face was right below his chin, and Kageyama refused to look at it as he tried to turn his smirk into something sober.

The demon hugged the man’s waist, grinning while his eyes were averted.

“Again?” he said.

The hero looked down through heavily lidded eyes. The demon stared, hunger mounting once again. His hands barely overlapped behind Kageyama’s back, and if he moved his arms up around his chest, his fingers might not touch at all. He couldn’t reach the shadowy undercarriage of his heavy chest with his face, but it was tantalizingly close, so he stretched his tongue and pressed into the meat. Neither could he resist running his tongue along the underside of each pectoral, lifting against them to feel the sheer weight, which was precisely even, with no favor to his sword arm. He was a thorough man.

The demon eased his tongue over his right nipple, eyes on the man’s face. He flicked his tongue, the bud already firm, and the man already shivering in his arms. He squeezed him and flicked back and forth over the nipple, until Kageyama’s big hands took hold of his shoulders. The demon retracted his tongue. He split it, and rubbed into the underside of each muscle, slicking his tiny curled hairs one way then the other. Then he licked over his nipples, wetly for the feast so near and ready. A grunt crept from the man’s throat. His eyes were shut tight, but the demon couldn’t close his own, drinking the sight of him like an elixir of life. The man squirmed as he lapped slowly over his nipples, simultaneously, then over one while he rubbed the muscle around the other, then made tiny circles against them with the very tips of his tongue, until finally the hero barked out:

“Again.”

The demon planted his hands on his shoulders and hauled himself up, gripping his body with his knees as he climbed him. He paused, with one legged wrapped around his back, to push the man’s hair away from his forehead and run his hand down through it. Then he did it with his other hand, then with both at once, watching the black silk flow over his knuckles.

“Kageyama Tobio…”

The man’s neck was craned to look at him, eyes intent and slightly questioning. The demon shook himself and slid his hands free, barely restraining a sad moan, and clamored over Kageyama’s shoulders. He gripped his sides and crawled down his back, knees hooking on his shoulders to keep him in place as he took two handfuls of Kageyama’s sculpted rear.

He rested his chin in the deep dip of his lower back and sent his tongue gliding down his skin. He poked once against his hole, gently. Kageyama’s breath sharpened and his hips jutted forward. The demon listened for a voice or touch of protest. He tongued him again, then licked it slick. He paused as his hole clenched and a shudder shook Kageyama’s back. It was as pink as his lips. A groan rolled in the demon’s chest. He started to lap at it, and the taste of him coupled with the sound of his breaths fluttering higher tore something open in the demon.

He squeezed him hard, but not so hard that he would break through his skin. He dipped his tongue in without rhythm, staggering along his course as he wrestled with a dozen instincts. Whining low, the demon pulled his knees down from Kageyama’s shoulders, pressing his cock against the man’s spine. He rutted there between his shoulder blades as he stretched his tongue thin and slipped it inside.

Kageyama made a little sound that was both surprised and enthralled. The demon sealed his lips over his hole and rutted harder. He pushed deep with his tongue, over and over, Kageyama’s muscles steadily relaxing around him. The urge to fill him up seized too quickly; the demon folded his tongue on itself, doubling the thickness. He heard a severed sound from Kageyama, and then the man’s hands closed around his ankles, clinging to the demon behind him. His hole spread as the demon drew out his tongue, tracing around his rim then thrusting it back through. Kageyama’s breath rattled. The demon pulled against his hands, using the newfound leverage to rub his cock harder and faster over the dips and swells of his muscles. He streaked come down his back, mewling into his hole as his tongue continued to work frantically.

His legs slipped from Kageyama’s grasp and he righted himself, grabbing Kageyama’s hips and pulling himself close to clean away his come. His eyes slid shut as his tongue smoothed over his back. He moved his hands up, groping along his sides and ribs, then sliding his hands around to squeeze his chest, face squished between his shoulder blades. His cock was still mercilessly hard, where it pressed between the tops of Kageyama’s cheeks.

He popped up between the man’s legs, planting his greedy hands on his thighs.

“Are you comfortable?”

Kageyama looked plenty relaxed, and his cock was high and full once again. The demon felt his eyes bulging from his head, and his lips winding and twisting in strange ways. He could hardly stand himself. The man was going to end him by pure accident.

The demon bit down his burning and reached to press on Kageyama’s lower chest, tilting him just slightly. Kageyama didn’t resist. He nodded at him. The demon started to curl his hips up, watching the hero’s eyes and gripping his legs. Kageyama, the beautiful, stupidly brave man, had never accepted this before. His would be the first cock inside him; he savored the feeling in his welling mouth, and dribbled from his slit. At the last moment he pulled back and folded over to slick himself. He realigned and looked up, pushing into him and starting immediately with slow thrusts. Kageyama’s eyes slipped shut and his thin lips fluttered apart. His hands gripped the demon’s shoulders.

“Kageyama Tobio,” he whispered. It resonated in the cavern.

He churned up his heat slowly, watching the corners of his eyes tighten and relax, his jaw quiver, pieces of hair fall over his shoulders. Kageyama lifted his chin, exposing his throat to the pale light. The demon lengthened his thrusts.

“Kageyama, so warm…”

“Please,” Kageyama mumbled.

His hand had moved to squeeze his cock. The demon peeled it away gently and bent himself up, mouth slipping over the head and sucking. Kageyama pushed on his back. The demon took him down and swallowed against his cock. He felt his own thrusts through the man’s body.

He sucked off of him and looked up. Slivers of blue urged him, confident, determined, yet trusting completely.

“Tobio.”

He watched them and took him in his mouth again. He eased down his cock, wrapping his tongue around each little bit as it passed his lips. He watched Kageyama watch him, until his thick tuft of hair tickled the tip of his nose. He closed his eyes and pressed his face to his body, jaw held immobile by Kageyama’s cock buried in his throat.

Kageyama moaned, high and raw, and his hands slid into his hair. The demon backed half way off, still squeezing him with his tongue, and increased the speed and power of his thrusts, until he was pushing, then throwing Kageyama forward into his mouth.

“Don’t stop—Please.”

“Kageyama,” he gurgled around his head.

His cock hit inside him, Kageyama’s stuffed his throat, and he filled the hero with come. It pulsed in waves as he pounded and reloaded his hips, squirting out around his cock and running down Kageyama’s cheeks until he was blissfully, peacefully empty and could hear Kageyama’s muted vocals with new clarity, and feel his shudders vibrating through his own body.

“More—”

He held his head firmly to his body, but his fingers were careful as they rubbed through his short curls. The demon pushed and pulled on his hips, wringing down his cock with his tongue, until Kageyama’s voice jumped out of his control, bouncing around the circular walls and flooding his ears from a hundred directions.

“Ah!”

The demon, all control and dedication, retraced the angle to his prostate over and over, giving all the power of his body as if this was what he had trained for all along. Kageyama yanked his head forward; the demon immediately pushed on his hips and denied him, accepting the full blast of the hero’s climax with his face as he rung him out with his hand and crushed his prostate.

He opened his eyes, come dripping off one lash onto his cheek. He looked past Kageyama’s shaky abdominals and swelling ribs, his sweaty neck and tangled hair, to his pink face and blue eyes, doing their best to stay open and meet his.

He slipped his cock from him. Kageyama sighed quietly. He closed his eyes for a moment, hands brushing down the sides of his neck. The demon parted his lips for his tongue, but Kageyama pressed his hand over it before he had reached any of the come.

He was looking at him hard, serious and very determined again. He urged the demon upward, until they were face to face. He cupped his jaw with his hands and licked his cheek, cleaning away the cooled mess with his warm tongue. The hairs on the demon’s neck pricked hot, and tingling rushed into his toes. The hero worked carefully over his brows and down his nose, then dabbed around his eyes with the tip of his tongue. The demon let them sink toward the ground. Kageyama passed his tongue over the corner of his mouth, then his upper lip. He caught the demon’s eyes as they opened, hesitated, and closed the tiny space again, swiping his tongue to clear the last of the residue. Their lips brushed.

He landed, and the demon’s feet touched down a moment later. Kageyama’s legs wobbled under him. He let go of the demon, who followed suit.

Kageyama smoothed his hands down his chest. It felt the same, but like it was unconnected to him. He looked down at the deep scratches below his hip. They were the same on the other side. The demon seemed surprised to find them there, but he said nothing, and Kageyama turned away, taking one more centering breath.

He pulled his garments back over his sweaty body, then reattached his armor, piece by piece. The demon spoke behind him.

“Would you like to take some of these riches?”

“I will only take what belongs to me.”

Kageyama pointed at his second sword in the wall as he was sheathing the first. The demon hopped past him and pulled it out, handing it over with the blade down. Kageyama put it away.

It seemed there was nothing left to do. Kageyama had always been uncomfortable in places where this was the case. He didn’t raise his eyes to the demon again. There was no purpose such a thing could serve. He turned, because there was nothing else to do, and headed for the way out.

He slammed to a stop upon realizing there was one other thing he _wanted_ to do. He turned around.

“Who are you?” he said.

The demon blinked at him.

“You don’t know what they call me?”

“Not what they call you.”

His eyes went a little wide. Then he looked solemn, but his chest was held out.

“Hinata Shouyou.”

Kageyama nodded.

“You are a worthy opponent. Nothing more than that,” he added, when the demon grinned.

He grinned even wider. Kageyama turned his shoulder and made for the crevice.

The hero entered the forest on no particular path, shifting unconsciously in his improperly placed armor. He walked slowly, as one generally did when they had no sure destination. Kageyama had not considered the possibility that he would fail. Hinata was still in the cavern, as if he had not come at all.

He stopped walking.

He had failed to destroy the demon, but there could be another way, he thought, of removing him from the place, so that he no longer posed a threat to greedy humans. That had been the purpose of his excursion, after all. The hero turned from his solitary way and marched back to the cavern.

Kageyama didn’t hear a sound as he crawled back into Hinata’s dwelling, and it prompted him to wonder what the demon did there while he was without pillagers. Kageyama stood and looked up, then squinted around through the darkness. He thought he heard a breath. Then there was a tiny, strangled noise from in front of him, and as his eyes adjusted, he made out a huddled form, seated on the rock floor with its knees pulled up to its chest. He took a step toward him, and Hinata’s head jerked up, glowing eyes peeking over his arms. They were painfully wide, with dark half-moons underneath them, and for the first time he looked very small to Kageyama.

He walked past the light to the opposite wall, speaking loudly in the silent cavern.

“Why are you crying?”

“I am not crying,” Hinata said.

Kageyama stopped in front of him.

“No?”

“No.”

He bent over, lifted Hinata’s chin with his fingers, and dried the tears on his cheeks and chin with the sleeve of his robe.

“No?” Kageyama said.

Hinata did not look at him. He sniffled.

“I am lonely here.”

He tucked his face back behind his arms.

“I dishonored my family and can’t return to them. Humans fear me. A hero would not understand,” he said. “You may go anywhere you like, and everyone loves you.”

“Oh. That is true,” Kageyama said.

Hinata scowled at him. Then he took a deep breath and slowly stood up, standing in front of Kageyama with his shoulders set.

“If you are with me, they will probably accept you,” said the hero.

All his surprise was etched into his face. Slowly, Hinata’s shoulders set low, and his eyes narrowed.

“I am not a prisoner. If you are going to take me to the gods, you will have to take my head from my shoulders.”

“Would I ask a prisoner to come with me?” Kageyama snapped.

Hinata’s face faltered, then twisted with his glare, and he called out:

“I am no pleasure slave either!”

Kageyama frowned. “You are more a slave to this place than you would be to me.”

Hinata studied him, head falling to the side.

“But you said that you will only take what belongs to you.”

Kageyama met his eyes.

“I felt like I had left something behind.” His voice grew firmer as he said: “It must mean that something of mine belongs to you now. And something of yours belongs to me.”

Hinata blinked. Then he smiled.

He beamed excitement, and warm understanding, and courage, a reflection of everything Kageyama felt spring up in him from where it had been a still pool since the beginning. Then the demon rushed him, throwing himself into his chest. Kageyama’s back slammed into the rocky floor and he gasped at the air forced through his throat, until Hinata made it impossible for him to breath at all by covering his lips with his own. He sprang away, and Kageyama lifted himself on his armored elbow, pain shooting through him.

“You will be paid fully in return for that.”

Hinata grinned over his shoulder as he flew toward the exit. As Kageyama watched, his wings sprouted out, and then shrunk, until the three-legged crow was hopping out of the cavern with a last look back at him. Kageyama got up, smirking as he unsheathed his sword. He would defeat Hinata Shouyou.

But that is a story of its own.

**Author's Note:**

> and that's how kageyama ended up with his demon boyfriend that he loves very much


End file.
